Barcelo Jerez Montecastillo & Convention Center

Arrived today for five days. Just had our first meal on all inclusive. No direction as what to do. No clear labelling in many things. Food extremely poor more like a motorway cafe. Buffet food cold, not cooked properly and some inedible. Not looking forward to the next few days of food. Hope the golf course makes up for it.

Let's stick to the facts, this isn't a 5 star hotel. It's at best a 3 star. It's tired, and dated inside the rooms. It stank the moment we opened the door of overused air freshener to mask the smell of drains because it rained according to the front desk. It's heavily over priced. The telephone didn't work to call for room service or even the front desk. No English speaking TV channels other than a news channel. Ant swarms most days somewhere. The food was not bad but €30 for a breakfast buffet or dinner its keen! The pool was shut, there wasn't a play area for kids, no crèche. No discount available for upgrading the room from a single to a double. We regret upgrading now for the additional €200. I came here in 2005 as a young 25 yearold onna work trip. I'd be surprised if it has seen a coat of paint since. Pros: it has a good golf course according to mates. It's next door to Jerez racing circuit. Cons: avoid if possible

Great location for visiting the coast and inland areas. Excellent breakfast, good food and friendly staff.

Booking online was smoothly and friendly, upon arrival, at reception was less than basic ! The receptionist seriously had no idea about anything. She didn't know or accepted we checked in online, she ignored the fact that i booked a high floor room in order to avoid any noise from fellow guests etc.. we had a very early start to the next day and needed a very good night sleep this is one reason we booked the Barcelo obviously. They have excellent mattresses and we love the fact we can regulate the room temperature. But she lied to me, when I asked if ALL high floor rooms were booked and the answer was clearly a very big lie. For a receptionist to lie to clients is extremely un professional, we expect a better service. To add salt to insult, the bathroom door needed the maintenance man , and we only had 1 bed side table !!! on 1 side of the bed, the make up mirror light is broken and the patio door wasn't opening properly. I am devastated that we had to wait ages in the room for the( friendly helpful) maintenance man to come and fix everything. we should have received a polite "sorry" from the receptionist and gave us a different 100% in order room. But we did NOT. This has spoiled our afternoon after we drove 3 hours to get there. This was a very much needed break for us and i was left disappointed. we have stayed many times in the Barcelos and this one has the worst unhelpful, unprofessional and lazy receptionist ever. The room next door to us had very loud, drunken laughter and screaming and I was bracing myself for the night time, but luckily it wasnt too bad by that time..However, the rest of the resort was lovely, the Spa was great, although the actual spa water was chilly and not very warm, and the Turkish steam room was out of order sadly...The breakfast is 100% perfect, the staff at the breakfast are polite and work very well. The food available is fantastic, from healthy and organic to fully cooked , teas, coffee etc.. also the breakfast room is lovely kept and bright . We would love to return to the area, but would prefer to receive a room we chose and pay for !!, rather that nothing but disappoin**ent in the first 3 hours.. because of the negative experience, we didnt try the evening restaurant and went elsewhere, to avoid more dissapoin**ent, which is sad really.

We arrived thinking that we had booked the 5 star hotel but were informed that we had actually booked a room at the 4 star hotel along the road. As the hotel was busy they were unable to upgrade us to a 5 star room. This also meant we had to pay a charge for the spa and a higher rate for the golf. Our room at the 4 star hotel was fine but it has absolutely no facilities- these are all provided at the 5 star hotel about 300 metres along the road. So be careful when you make your booking - according to reception staff many people make the same mistake. The services provided at the 5 star hotel are good although we didn't use the spa. The golf course was generally good although a few of the holes needed some attention.

upon arrival we had the very worse receptionist you could imagine, she made a lot of mistakes, gave us the incorrect room, i had requested top floor or high floor room for the reason that we prefer silent rooms no above head noises from furniture etc. she actually LIED to us, saying there were no rooms available, while in actual fact the hotel wasn't eve 50% full ! with a maximum of 8 ro 10 cars and only a few rooms occupied, it was clear it was a quiet weekend. She gave us a wrong time for the spa, and gave us children's tickets for the spa ! our room nr. 55 had many faults, so we wasted our precious time to report all of them, back and forth to the unhelpful receptionist, a missing side table, only 1 for 2 people.. honestly, bathroom door broken, outside terrace door needed fixing, light in the bathroom needed fixing.. so i hate complaining when you have paid for a certain standard and then you have nothing but trouble and grief., the receptionist was not helpful at all, she made us wait a long time before she actually notified the maintenance man, who was very helpful and friendly, he did his best. We should have received an apology from the recptionist after the very first hour and been given another room that was 100% to normal, requested standard. we paid for it, so we should get the service and product.. after driving 3 hours, we needed to enjoy a peaceful resting time instead of constant going up to reception are to report the mistakes with the room. not a kind experience to say the least ! we have stayed in Barcelos often and this was not what we expected. there was nobody else in charge of could help us, just the disrespectful, lying lazy and totally unprofessional recptionist, unemployable in my opinion. The rest of the facilities, were excellent as usual Although when we eventually got to the Spa, the Turkish steam room, or wet room was out of order, which we were looking forward to on a cold winters day, and the water of the actual spa pool was seriously below its normal temperature, as 6 more guests also were complaining about, we realized it must have been a mechanical fault that needed fixing , but it didn't spoil the relaxation too much i suppose. The breakfast is excellent as usual for the Barcelo chain, the service the very same 100% enjoyable , clean, fresh good choices, good quality and friendly hard working staff , very helpful . We would love to come back to the area, but we would need a proper room to our booking and payment stand

Location was perfect. Everywhere was clean. Staff very helpful. Unfortunately while the room was not bad, bed was most uncomfortable. Food at the resort was very poor. Quality of food in snack bar and restaurant was not good at all. Everyone in the group felt the same. Spa looked nice. Massage was excellent. A bit strange for guests to be charged (€23) to use the pool though.

The hotel was obviously golf based, but the facilities were good. Very good and friendly staff. The breakfasts were amazingly good. However, the rooms were a let-down. The internal door was very stiff and it made a loud creaking noise, when you moved it. We were suprised to see a large cockroach moving across the bathroom floor, which left us worried that there may be more ! The Hotel is very modern, but rather impersonal. It would be better, if it wasnt so stark and institutional, with little tasteful touches, like more artwork and ornaments.

This is the third year running I and 3 friends have attended on an all inclusive golf holiday basis, and the first time we feel we have been let down by the hotel. The first issue we had was when we were informed we couldn't access our room until 16:00hrs. We informed the receptionist we were due to tee off at 14:00hrs and required to change. We were pointed to a communal toilet in the corridor facing the reception desk and told that was all that was available, so 4 of us were forced to change there. We were also informed at reception that our all inclusive time in the bar would finish at 23:00hrs instead of Midnight as it had on previous years. Once we were given out rooms we were again disappointed. The view from the rooms was of derelict and unfinished buildings, not of the magnificent course we were there to play. Meanwhile guests who were there working and doing testing on the motor circuit had a view of the course but never really saw it. What a waste. We also found out that meal timings had changed and that the evening meal would now start at 20:00hrs and run until 22:30hrs. This is ludicrous, who sits down to eat an evening meal at 20:00hrs? It was worse for those guests with young children who would normally be in bed around that time. Our personal opinion was that this was to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed, by people who normally have a drink after their meal. On our third day we decided we didn't want to attend the restaurant and would instead have a bar meal instead. When we went to place our order, we were told this was not part of the all inclusive package and that we would have to pay. I pointed out that on previous years we had done this without issue and asked what in fact was included in the all inclusive. The answer was "not very much". You get your 3 meals a day, drinks until 23:00hrs even though the bar still remains open until Midnight and use of the gym and that's about it. Why bother going all inclusive, especially as we didn't drink a great deal or use the gym/Spa facilities? This is the only hotel I have ever visited that does not have bar snacks as part of its all inclusive package. The final disappoin**ent came when we were booking out and were informed we had a bill to pay for water we had drunk from the room minibar. We pointed out that the bottled water in the hotel was free and assumed that as it was the same bottled water then it was free. We also pointed out that we had left more in the fridge on departure than we had drunk while there but this made no difference. The staff in the hotel were excellent (except maybe the receptionist upon our arrival) and were extremely helpful. The dining staff were attentive, professional and interacted with guests very well. The bar staff again were excellent. They were very friendly, attentive, learning what you liked to drink very quickly and interacted well with guests. The golf course was fantastic as usual and the ladies in the pro shop were excellent, frien